


A Knight's Reprieve

by colorfulCheshire



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorfulCheshire/pseuds/colorfulCheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t fully understand humans or their methods of comfort, but you don’t want to ruin another pale relationship with strict definitions.  It’s an odd arrangement that shouldn’t make much sense, but it does, and it works, so you just try to be there when your moirail needs you to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Knight's Reprieve

**Author's Note:**

> Heh, my first davekat work and it's pale, well I wasn't expecting that. Timeframe: on the meteor, probably a sweep/2.5 years in.

You’re sleeping soundly, actually dreaming for once instead of being forced to face the ghosts of those whose deaths you’ve taken responsibility for. It’s a nice dream, too – nothing solid or mention-worthy aside from the distinct memory of stargazing with your lusus, but it’s not a memory that reminds you of why you’re awful or why your race is nearly gone, so you’re happy and enjoying it while it lasts.

Someone calls your name and you turn to look around, but you only catch a flash of red in your peripheral before your conscious mind tells you that it’s time to get up. You frown, and turn to your dream lusus with a sad smile before letting the world fade around you; taking care of the real world is more important than living a memory.

Your eyes open in the dark, making out the darkened details of your block as you sit up and start rearranging your blanket pile to make a comfortable cushion against the wall.  With a yawn, you lay against the pile and wait, eyes closing while you listen to the silence of the lab.

He hardly makes a sound as he approaches your door, steps light enough to be mistaken for your own thrumming heart. He knocks, just twice, and for a brief moment, light filters over your eyelids as he lets himself in.  You feel him standing over your pile, but you don’t open your eyes to greet him, letting him take his time to calm down.  Even though you both know why he’s here, he still seems to feel the need to put on his smooth persona before officially announcing his presence.

When he sits down beside you, back propped up against your makeshift cushion, you lean your head against his side and take in the scent of dust and fumes. When he lifts an arm to drape part of his cape over you, you realize that he’s changed into his godtier PJs and has probably been walking around outside the lab on and off between sleep. You’ve told him to stop doing that, but you know he rarely listens to anyone. You pull the cape tighter around you and adjust a bit to allow his arm to rest across your shoulders without your horns digging into his ribs.

“Not gonna lecture me tonight, Kit-kat?” His voice is smooth and quiet, and you know he probably thinks he sounds as put together as he normally does – you haven’t yet told him how many tones a troll’s ears can pick up.  You don’t respond to his attempt at an offhand remark, instead, pulling up a spare blanket around the both of you before settling back down against his side.

He says nothing else, and when the hand resting on one shoulder creeps up to pet your hair, you know he’s lost in thought.  His fingers in your hair feel nice, lulling you back to the edge of sleep as the faintest purr clicks in the back of your throat, but you don’t fall back to sleep, no matter how nice that sounds. 

You’re worried about him as you keep noticing a jump in his breath or a break in the steady strokes against your head from time to time and you wonder what he’s thinking.  You won’t ask, though. He always speaks on his own time, not one that you can just pull information out of, no matter how torn up he is about it.  It’s a stark contrast to your own behavior, a lengthy rant spilling from your lips with little more than a single questioning eyebrow raised above dark shades.

The two of you stay like that for who-knows-how-long (he’d probably be able to tell you down to the seconds) and his heart is finally keeping a steady beat inside his chest when his fingers start to focus on the base around your horns, massaging gently as his thoughts become more focused. You’re used to this by now, and know that with the next breath will come the usual question.

“Hey Vantas, you still awake?” he asks softly, like he wants you to be fast asleep.  You don’t answer, move, or even pause your faint clicking-purr, but you both know that he can tell when you’re awake, that he’s more comfortable pretending you can’t hear him.  He doesn’t continue for a few more deep breaths, his fingers losing form in their strokes as they begin to trace random shapes around your horns.

“They’ll watch everyone die,” he says quietly after a moment. You stiffen beside him and he does the same, but he continues playing with your hair as he forces himself to speak.

“Every single one of me. Every single me from every failed timeline, we have to watch everyone die.” You’re quiet, still, not sure what to say to make things better, because you know there isn’t anything like that to be said.  “I’m pulling more time-player bullshit, or so my sources say, my sources being other me’s that future me pulls out of their doomed timelines to face this green asshole.”

He sighs, heavily. “There are too many of me dead right now because of that wanna-be-heroic bullshit, and none of them know if we win.  Apparently a Lord of Time outranks a million Knights and Maids.”

“I . . .” he fails for words, which is actually common for him when he’s not bothering to put up his cool-kid facade, acting like everything out of his mouth is exactly what he wanted to say, even when he surprises himself with his own stupid metaphors.  “I, me, all of me – if we don’t already watch everyone die in some tentacle-fucked timeline, we go into battle knowing they die anyways, that the only reason we’re still up and fighting is for the alpha-timeline. . . . Over half of the Dave’s in those dream bubbles die in that fight. . . .”

He grows quiet, his breathing heavy beneath you and his hand still in your hair as he adds, under his breath, “and if it’s not going to be my fault . . . then I’m going to be just like them.”

His chest heaves for a moment from a forced, snide laugh and you can feel the unsteadiness in his hand as he briefly debates releasing the waterfall of word-vomit he’s likely holding in. He laughs again, a short, cynical burst and launches into what you assume is the reason that brought him here in the middle of everyone’s semi-designated sleep time.

“You’d think I was you or something with the thought of how much I’d hate to see another of me lately.  I smashed the mirror in my bathroom a week ago when I was half-asleep, thinking it was some future me coming to tell me that I fuck up later and that everyone on this fucking meteor is going to die along with John and Jade wherever they are because one fuck-up brings the entire universe collapsing on itself in an attempt to kiss its own ass good-bye.  I’m okay with dying, like I get that it’s totally a possibility. I mean, I’ve done it at least twenty times by now, and I’m going to keep doing it in the future, or at least, other Dave’s have all done this, so I’m pretty much prepared for the idea that there’s a good chance I’m going to have to get comfortable with those shitacular little dream bubbles. Fuck, I’ve even thought about going ahead and setting up a patch of land for myself, making a city, and calling it Dave Town with danky little farms that harvest SBAHJ comics from tilled land. . .” Here he slows down from his tirade, catching himself.

“But even though I’m ready to die, I don’t want this timeline to be fucked. I want this to stay the alpha-timeline.  You guys don’t need to die. I’m sick of seeing everyone’s white eyes greeting me like it’s no big deal every time I try to catch some elusive Z-beasts.  I know this shit is unavoidable and our chance of survival hangs in the tentacles of some eldritch abomination who can decide to doom a timeline with a flick of one of its undulating appendages, but I still feel like I should have stopped it, and if not me, then whichever Dave who could.”

“Karkat, I’m terrified of my own damned reflection. It’s a crying fucking shame that I can’t even let my eyes rest comfortably on such a fine piece of ass without some sort of doubt eating a hole through my stomach faster than whatever it is you trolls try to pass off as food.  I see myself all over this fucking meteor, too. You’d think for the lack of available people, I’d get some quiet, but apparently that’s too much to ask for when it comes to myself.  I’m not sleeping much and then when my paranoid, sleep-deprived brain catches a glimpse of a familiar cape or ironic shades, I have to jump back right there just to go fucking check, and sure enough, past-me catches sight of me and goes through the same cycle of scaring the shit out of himself through time-loops all over again. And _every fucking time_ I tell myself to ignore it, to stay put and not check, to _not_ give into the urge to make sure I’m not really there, or that it’s not some _other_ future me from the _real_ alpha timeline who’s come to tell me to kiss you all goodbye and throw myself in front of some laser-spewing green prick in hopes that maybe somewhere some version of us can beat this messed up game and be _done with every-_ Yes, Kit-kat?”

He’s stopped mid-rant after you started moving beneath his arm, pushing yourself up on your knees, straddling one of his legs so you can face him directly.  He’s not wearing his shades, and even in the dark you can see the smallest amount of water clinging to his lower lashes. It twists your insides and you wish that he could just be happy, that he didn’t have to feel so shitty about this, that none of this bullshit had happened, but you don’t say anything. Instead, you gently grab his face in your hands and pull his forehead to yours.  You want to pull him to your chest, to pet his hair and shoosh him, to tell him that it’s going to be okay, even if you don’t know how, but it will.  However, he hates that and you know it, even though that’s exactly what he does for you when you have your own problems eating a hole through your pan.

No, he doesn’t allow himself to accept that kind of comfort, and while it goes against your own cultural definition of a pale relationship, you let him have it his way, coming to you in the dead of night to pet your hair while he talks to you and pretends that you’re asleep.  But sometimes it hurts too much to do nothing.  You know how much that line of thinking fucks you up and you pity him on a deeper level than you think you’ve ever pitied anyone.

He’s quiet, glossy eyes staring into yours with a tired look as he waits. You nuzzles his forehead with your own, thumbs gently stroking beneath dark circles that are normally hidden by his shades. You really just want to pull him close, and while you think that he’d let you, you know it would hit him hard in the pride, make him feel even more weak than he already does, and you wouldn’t want to do that to him. You know it reminds him of his human-lusus.

Instead, you lean forward slowly, tilting your head to leave a chaste kiss on his cheek. Your lips linger, hovering over his skin for a moment before you pull back to look him in the eyes again, trying to give him the most reassuring expression that you can muster.  You’re sure it’s probably a terrible excuse for something even remotely calming, but the shock in his eyes dissolves with a small half-smile, so it must not have been a complete failure.

“Don’t call me that, you pan-addled asswipe,” you chide softly, rolling your eyes at him to be rewarded with a small laugh.

Satisfied that he’s slightly more relaxed, you shift around to sit in-between his legs and lean against his chest, pulling a blanket up around the both of you as you rest your head on his shoulder.  You feel him smile against your forehead as he gets comfortable, shifting you both a bit lower so he can lay back more before readjusting the blanket.

He has an arm curled up against your back, his fingers in your hair again as his other hand lands in your open palm against his chest.  He’s quiet now, seeming okay for the night, and as you begin to drift off to sleep, you wonder if he can wrap his human-schemas around the gravity of that kiss. You doubt it, and you know he’ll probably bring it up later in a teasing manner that means he’s completely missed the point and you’ll regret it, but for now, it’s the best you could give him, and you mean it.  You won’t mind too much, even if he doesn’t ever get it.

“Thanks, Kit-kat,” he whispers just barely over your quiet purr, not quiet silenced while you’re still awake. “You’re the best bro anyone could ever ask for, and don’t ever forget it.”

You smile against his chest. Maybe he understands after all.


End file.
